If you know someone on the inside, you can get quite spoiled in Tokyo.

One morning I stepped out of the spacious Roppongi apartment owned by a generous friend. I walked around the corner for one of Tokyo’s more unusual gourmet experiences - ramen at Ichiran Ramen, which takes a monastic view of the national dish (more of that later). I spent a ( Read more... )

Buenos Aires is a city of many contradictions. One of the most obvious, even to a visiting tourist like myself, is that while it looks on the surface to be a genteel European city, you can be robbed blind while walking its streets.

Which is how I found myself in a police station, making that most hopeless of gestures - waiting to fill a police ( Read more... )

 Istanbul. That magical, spicy word, resonant with history and images. The air is thick here with legends - you could grab them out of the air in fistfuls. With a celebrated history going back 3,000 years, you would expect nothing less. Roman fragments jostle with Ottoman baths, Byzantine ruins with cellphone shops, and everywhere the hectic hustle ( Read more... )

From the endless representations in film, literature and popular culture, you always get the impression that Australia’s so-called Red Centre is simply and solely that: a martian landscape of unimaginable emptiness and vastness. You know the images: the entire world reduced to a single horizon line, separating an ozone-blue sky above from a rust- ( Read more... )

This casual-dining spot was opened by the same people who run the wonderful Zanotti, but aiming at a different demographic. Gone are the white tablecloths, the upmarket décor and the choice parmegiano reggiano. Prices are better-suited for local budgets - you certainly won’t get anything with truffle-oil here - but it’s still a fun, informal place ( Read more... )

Most people already know the story of this curious-sounding eatery. It’s the brainchild of the so-called Thai “Condom King”, the man who built a business empire from manufacturing condoms and has been instrumental in promoting safe sex, birth-control and AIDS education as part of his philanthropic outreach - the profits go towards AIDS prevention ( Read more... )

“If you go to Zanotti’s, you can forget about other Italian restaurant in Bangkok ( Read more... )

Part of a long overdue account of my Europe trip.It’s 4.00am in Vienna, but my mind remains stubbornly awake. I’ve been tossing and turning like a pancake over a slow flame for the past 4 hours, but my reneging body feels like flinging itself out of bed, into some clothes and onto the street for breakfast, only it’s pitch black outside and I had my ( Read more... )